Category Archives: Political Correctness

The Week of The Whining Womin

Feminism, Gender, Labor, Political Correctness, Republicans, Sex

“The Week of The Whining Womin” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

“The logic is as simple as it is foolproof. An “air-tight free-market argument,” according to WND: “If women with the same skills as men were getting only 78 cents for every dollar a man earns, men as a group would have long-since priced themselves out of the market. That entrepreneurs don’t ditch men en masse for women suggests that different abilities and experience are at work, rather than a conspiracy to suppress women.”

The logic is not, however, female proof.

It’s been the week of the weaker sex: filled with baseless whining. The Week of the Womin culminated with Facebook billionaire Sheryl Sandberg grumbling to Fox News millionaire Megyn Kelly: “I think it’s good that the president took some steps on equal pay, but it’s not enough.”

About women’s work Sandberg holds humdrum feminist views. She learned the hard way, having dared, at first, to share the aggregate reality she had encountered in the workplace: Men were wont to be as driven as demons. Women needed to be driven. For that observation, the Pussy Riot Sisterhood threatened to sandbag Sandberg. Facebook’s chief operating officer quickly corrected course. Ms. Sandberg started mouthing the only acceptable meme: Saddle “society” and the “patriarchy” for any and all female failures and preferences.

As her politically pleasing, mainstream opinion currently has it, society and the patriarchy have conditioned women to be nurturing and to apologize for any male-like, go-getter ambitions they harbor. While men will attribute their success to their own core skills; women “attribute their success to luck and help from other people,” carps Sandberg. The girls are too nice. They don’t take credit for their greatness. They don’t raise their hand enough. They don’t “Lean In”—the trite title of Sandberg’s serialized book. Yes, there’s a follow up for advanced nudniks. …

Read the complete column. “The Week of The Whining Womin” is now on WND.

Where’s America’s Right To Referendum, Secession?

Federalism, Foreign Policy, Liberty, Military, Multiculturalism, Neoconservatism, Political Correctness, Russia

“Where’s America’s Right To Referendum, Secession?” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

From a node in the neoconservative network, a Fox News studio, Charles Krauthammer has complained about the eviction of the Ukrainian Navy from the city of Sevastopol, where it was headquartered. Not a word did the commentator say about the city’s location: Sevastopol is on the Crimean Peninsula. It would appear that the city now falls within Crimean jurisdiction—starting on March 16, the day the people of Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine.

By most estimates, between 97 and 93 percent of Crimean voters said yes to a reunion with Russia. High too was voter turnout. McClatchy pegs it at 83 percent of registered voters in Crimea. BBC News was agreed, also reporting a ballot of ‘more than 80 percent.’ Zerohedge.com counted a ‘paltry’ 73 percent turnout, still ‘higher than every U.S. presidential election since 1900.’

As rocker Ted Nugent might say, the Russians and Crimeans are blood brothers. Nugent got into trouble for using this perfectly proper appellation to describe his affinity for a politician, of all people: Texas Republican gubernatorial hopeful Greg Abbott. Notwithstanding that in the land of the terminally stupid, linguistic flourish can land one in hot water—blood brother is a good, if colorful, turn of phrase that denotes fealty between like-minded people. Steeped in state-enforced multiculturalism, America’s deracinated, self-anointed cognoscenti have a hard time grasping the blood-brother connections between the people of Russia and Crimea.

For no apparent reason other than that it is pro-Russian, Americans have reflexively aligned themselves against the swell for secession in southern Ukraine. Separatist referenda in Kosovo, Catalonia, South Sudan and Scotland have been accepted without demur by a political and media establishment unprepared to countenance a similar referendum in Crimea. …”

… Read on. The complete column is “Where’s America’s Right To Referendum, Secession?” now on WND.

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Weighing A Second Career In Education Against The Lobotomy Prerequisite

BAB's A List, Education, Political Correctness, Propaganda

By Myron Pauli

There will be a time one day when I retire from doing research for the Navy and I entertained a thought of possibly becoming a teacher and possibly inspiring the minds of future Einsteins but then reality hit me.

First, you must take lobotomizing “education courses” to teach in school systems where normal teachers are the minority of employees adrift in a politicized bureaucracy of department heads, principals, assistant vice-principals, associate superintendents and God knows what.

Then you have the idiotic curricula that you are forced to teach.In history, it is politically correct rubbish where every minority group and sexual orientation except possibly white men fought in World War 2 and where the Zoot Suit Riots are more important than the Battle of Kursk. In physics, I can proudly say that my daughter got an A last quarter while I am ashamed to say that she learned little if any physics. Rather than teaching the future psychologists, stockbrokers, lawyers, and actresses a descriptive course about the forces of nature, the spectrum of light, laws of thermodynamics, structures from the nucleus to the universe, or how devices like lasers or transistors work – they teach algebraic crank plugging. Admittedly, the scientists can learn this in short order once they get calculus, but this is the only exposure most of the kids will ever see of physics.

Taking the place of parents, the schools are a political battleground between “Heather Has Two Mommies” and “abstinence education.” Can I hold out for “Uncle Fred Loves His Goat”?

I am blissfully ignorant of other curricula but perhaps Paul Simon’s adage sums it up: “When I think of all the crap I learned in High School, it’s a wonder I can think at all!”

Then we have the students, that collection of Charlie Mansons, Robert Mugabes, Lucrezia Borgas, Kim Jong Uns, and Miley Cyruses that often make the cast of “Blackboard Jungle” look like the Vienna Boys Choir. If you are lucky, the non-violent bored inmates are just texting each other about Justin Bieber, shopping malls, and the next sex/booze/drug parties. My daughter’s school’s nickname is “Weedson” and not because of uncut lawns. Some of the sleep deprived overtested zombies in Fairfax have to catch buses as early as 5:45 am.

If you are a non-black teacher and you discipline a black student for either disruptive behavior of using 1st grade English in the 11th grade, you run the risk of an R-word (racist) accusation from the child or his pseudo-parents – not worth risking you career by correcting anyone. Ironically, the students may have been better off in the old segregated but disciplined schools in the old Jim Crow era – and Booker T. Washington is rolling in his grave.

On the flip side, see what happens if you ever give Amy “Tiger Mom” Chua’s precious brats an A-. Hell hath no fury like a Tiger Mother scorned.

Meanwhile, you have New Math, Leave No Child Behind, Race To the Top, Common Core, the Fad of the Month and the supreme directive to teach to the test. Any teacher who survives all of this with any talent has my sympathy and blessing. More typical is the baseball coach who teaches history via a 3-class rotation of computer-graded multiple-choice tests, showing movies, and showing power-point presentations with no questions asked. The honors students and special schools tend to get the real teachers and the ordinary and substandard students are often left with the burned-out surviving dregs.

Perhaps you might say that my daughter is at some poor rural or ghetto school but “Weedson” is actually a US News “Gold Medal” high school that is ranked # 116 with no admissions tests – professionals try to move into this neighborhood. The school also acts as a “zero tolerance” pressure cooker whose high ranking also includes 6 suicides in 18 months. Perhaps there is a contest for “most suicides” and Woodson (Weedson) can really earn the Gold Medal.

At least the suicidal kids are not shooting up the school! Considering my professional work in detection and defense against gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, perhaps a high School career is appropriate for my post-Naval research career!

******
Barely a Blog (BAB) contributor Myron Pauli grew up in Sunnyside Queens, went off to college in Cleveland and then spent time in a mental institution in Cambridge MA (MIT) with Benjamin Netanyahu (did not know him), and others until he was released with the “hostages” and Jimmy Carter on January 20, 1981, having defended his dissertation in nuclear physics. Most of the time since, he has worked on infrared sensors, mainly at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. He was NOT named after Ron Paul but is distantly related to physicist Wolftgang Pauli; unfortunately, only the “good looks” were handed down and not the brains. He writes assorted song lyrics and essays reflecting his cynicism and classical liberalism. Click on the “BAB’s A List” category to access the Pauli archive.

UPDATE IV: Latest Anti-Man Moaning From Menstruation Lobby (‘The Americans’)

Capitalism, Celebrity, Feminism, Film, Gender, Government, Hollywood, Political Correctness

Just for a change, the menstruation lobby is moaning about the movies and its members’ representation therein: “The latest study on women in front of the camera finds that female characters are still significantly under-represented on the big screen. … The numbers for minority females are even lower. African-American female representation on screen climbed to 14%, from 8% in 2011, but down from 15% in 2012.”

Despite the same lobby’s attempt to ban the word, we women are “bossy.”

I control the remote in the house. My husband, however, is happy to allow it, because we like viewing the same things—except that he is more patient and prone to watch foolish female heroes strut their stuff in stilettos and plunging cleavages while chasing the bad guys. He’s been softened. He believes the schtick.

Other than “Olivia” in “Law and Order”—she’s the only believable woman in a tough-cop routine—I can’t watch females as action heroes because it doesn’t make sense. I’m way too wedded to reality to find women believable in these roles.

As for the presence of minorities in movies: it usually signals a two-hour long, oppressive racial lecture. And “I’m no more inclined to turn to ’12 Years A Slave’ for entertainment, than I am to subject myself to Oprah Winfrey and her M.O.P.E. (Most Oppressed Person Ever) ‘Butler.'”

Maybe other viewers are on to this and agree, because it is quite clear that Hollywood is giving viewers what they want to see: men in lead roles. If film executives listened to loathsome Lena Dunham, instead of to the demands of consumers—the industry would go bankrupt.

In any event, Sean and I both like the Metal and Military Channels, “Investigation Discovery” for the gory real-life murder cases, “Law and Order” (Olivia’s awesome), “The Following,” “Criminal Minds” (the horror compensates for the hens), “Justified,” and, I know the category is wrong, but the Oscars belongs to ….

The Americans.

It is simply superb; TV at its best: no politics, surprisingly, no mega movie stars (who usually can’t act); real foreigners playing foreigners (no fake foreign accent, courtesy of Angelina Jolie), and a great script.

Enjoy tonight’s episode.

UPDATE I (3/13): The Following” is ad hoc, make-it-up-as-you-go garbage. But it’s done well-enough to entertain.

UPDATE II: “THE AMERICANS.” The script and story are so good in The Americans, that you don’t root for a political side—the story is remarkably apolitical, given how political is should be, the halmark of good storytelling—you simply get absorbed in the plot. It’s a great spook story. That’s the experience the movies should deliver. Good narrative, good acting, no wagging finger. However, it is pro-American in the subtle, good, non-rah-rah way, as it shows how the couple is living the life while going through the spook motions. It is wonderful TV.

UPDATE III: The script and story are so good in “The Americans,” that you don’t root for a political side—the story is remarkably apolitical, given how political is should be, the hallmark of good storytelling—you simply get absorbed in the plot. It’s a great spook story. That’s the experience the movies should deliver. Good narrative, good acting, no wagging finger. However, it is pro-American in the subtle, good, non rah-rah way, as it shows how the couple is living The Life while going through the spook motions. It is wonderful TV.

House of Cards: I do not like a lecture: not from the Right, the Left, or from the libertarians (my crowd). And I do not watch any program about politicians, CIA, FBI, NSA. I want to excise these cancers from my life.

UPDATE IV: Some seek an ideology in a story, I seek a good narrative. Not sure what it is about my explanation on Facebook that Friends have failed to get about excising all gov. from my life. CIA, FBI, NSA, D.C.: “Good” or bad, it’s all bad, because it should be abolished. I don’t watch it for “fun.” I write about it.